David Cronenberg’s History of Violence

"Everybody's a mad scientist, and life is their lab. We're all trying to experiment to find a way to live, to solve problems, to fend off madness and chaos." - David Cronenberg

David Cronenberg has come a long way since he started work on his first feature, Orgy of the Blood Parasites, 33-years ago. Set in a tower block where residents are infected by a slug-like virus that turns them into sex maniacs, the film was released under various titles - including The Parasite Murders, They Came From Within, and latterly Shivers - but met with vitriolic criticism back home in Canada, where MPs voiced their disgust and declared this was not an acceptable use of tax-payer's money (the National Film Board of Canada was an investor in the film). Not only did Cronenberg struggle to get funding for his next movie, Rabid (1977), he was even thrown out of his apartment.

In his sixties now, the one-time "King of Venereal Horror" has become a national hero, not just Canada's greatest filmmaker but one of the most respected anywhere. His unerring ability to put a personal stamp on genre entertainments (like A History Of Violence, and The Fly) has earned him the trust of the industry, while critics have been won over by the skill and courage with which he navigates difficult, esoteric material like Naked Lunch and Crash. Once notorious for gore, he's better known today for the curiosity and intelligence that informs his coolly subversive cinema. In the recently published Rough Guide to Film , Jessica Winter concludes that Cronenberg has been on "a twenty-year roll that's perhaps unrivalled among English-language directors for challenge and consistency."

So where should a Cronenberg virgin go to get a sense of the man and his singular body of work?

I'd say his career breaks down into three or four major phases, all of them are worth checking out:

Cronenberg himself seems immune from that question. His DNA is all over these pictures, no matter what phase his career was in.

Of the already infamous bath-house knife fight in Eastern Promises, the director has this to say:

"Violence is physical. It's all about bodies. It's about the destruction of bodies. And I insist on that as the reality of this. And I want to see it all. This fight scene has to make physiological sense. It has to make mechanical sense. It has to make body sense."

Before he became a filmmaker, Martin Scorsese considered entering the priesthood. Oliver Stone was a soldier. David Cronenberg considered becoming a scientist. Instead he is the cinema's most fearless biologist and rigorous philosopher.

Tom Charity
tom.charity@lovefilm.com

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